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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Science goals missed in the past decade - and what we can do!

Today we look into the scientific failures of the decade as reported by Scientific American and comment on them honestly in light of our Christian beliefs.

How we are still missing hitting scientific targets in the 1^st decade of the millennium.

According to Scientific American (and probably particular editors like Mr. Rennie who have influenced it) we have failed to hit some targets that we all expected would be cleared by science by now.^{^[1]}

The first of these is apparently forcing evolution to be the only theory taught in school! The courts and public opinion still points out “intelligent design” is an option. Many scientists still favour this approach and those pushing evolution are becoming more angry and forceful in their approaches all the time. One wonders what part of “scientific debate” they don’t understand. Surely if you are fair you give people both sides of the story and let them make up their mind. It seems the “evolutionists” don’t feel that way. They are trying to have it outlawed for “science teachers to insert creationism into their curriculum”^{^[2]}

The second failure is that we have not yet found a cure for cancer. This terrible disease still is the scourge of lives as we get older. Lets continue to pray because sometimes things happen. See “Did prayers to God help cure cancer?” for one example. Lets pray for a universal cure to be found that can help many people!

The third is the belief that electrical cars would take over. This seems to just not be happening. Hybrids have increased and electrical technology is in place but this still seems like it will take a long time to happen.

Fourth is the fact that we still don’t understand the brain fully. Hmmm! Maybe that was a rather optimistic endeavor. That may also take a while.

Fifth is the fact that SETI has failed so far. “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project had swept a good chunk of the Milky Way for radio signals and come up with not much more than static”. Well the bible doesn’t say we are alone, but it also doesn’t seem to suggest there are others like us. We will wait and see on this one but it does look to me that God created the universe and Earth for us so this doesn’t really surprise me! I’m not sure if it surprises you?

Sixth is explained as “ancesteral angst” and the scientific American discusses paleoanthropology focusing on the hobbit skeleton and Ardipithecus ramidus ("Ardi") with the comment that “lack of definitive fossil evidence has many guessing whether this primate was really a biped—and just where she might fit on the human family tree.”

What they fail to mention, and I find this amazing is that the years of promoting Neanderthal man as an ancestor to Homo Sapiens was disproved!

Amazing how people can shout the odds about something they believed proved part of evolution, only to go exceedingly quiet when the proof goes against them. There is something unpleasant about this! I know they are not lying, but by not apologizing or admitting they pushed wrong perceptions at us makes me loose respect for those who fail to own up to their mistakes publically.

Seventh is entitled “CLIMATE STILL CHANGING” and goes onto point out “many Americans remain unconvinced that human activity is having an impact on the earth's climate”. Now this is interesting since if it was a fact, the world and governments would be hard pressed to ignore it.

Unfortunately this earth has a history of climate changes such as those we are going through right now, but occurring without human influence.

Could this just be a normal variation?

(By the way I do support a greener planet, cleaning the environment and reducing emissions, but I just want people to speak truth as well! However, basing a cleanup on lies might get it done, but isn’t very honest is it?)

Eighth on the list is “HIV ROADBLOCKS” and states “After misplaced hopes in 2000 and a failed HIV vaccine trial in 2007, this year's Thai clinical trial results did leave some researchers hopeful that a vaccine might eventually be possible.”

I hope so! I pray so! Let’s continue to do what we can to get rid of this horrible disease. We now know that “new symptoms, such as memory loss and premature aging, are surfacing in people living with HIV.”^{^[3]}

When it comes to the spread of this, the bible points out we should have sex with our own wives and husbands. If we only did this, the chance of contracting this disease would be almost negligible!

Perhaps by doing what the bible wants is one of the best defenses. What do you think?

Ninth is the energy problem we still face.

While we are developing alternative energies, the Scientific American rightfully points out that “in most places, the old grid is still a one-way street, preventing consumers from selling power from solar or wind (if they can even afford to install the still-pricey technologies) back into the grid.”

We need to advocate change in this regard. Unfortunately for us those selling energy have huge influence with our governments. We need to push to get this changed, then we can all put up wind turbines and help each other. Maybe using the Earths God given reusable energy supplies would be easier of there was less greed and protectionism?

Lastly space itself is still facing us with questions as it has for thousands of years. The space tourism may have started now but we are a long way for space and sub-space travel for ordinary Joe’s like ourselves. It is reported NASA is even having trouble moving ahead. Can it be that we as humans are getting more comfortable with Earth and have less concern about what is out there?

“God created us and our environment and keeps us on the straight and narrow” is my perspective, and “how” is what science can explain when it is truthful.

I have difficulty with the way scientists select information that meets their needs.

One fact is that on this Earth there are rocks that have human and dinosaur footprints together at the same dating level.

This is impossibility according to science. What some pseudo scientists did,(unproven but highly likely) when they saw this evidence presented at a conference was that they went out with chisels and chopped up the rocks!

Why do that?

Isn’t science supposed to consider all evidence?

Unfortunately many scientists raise science to the level of a religion!

For example. . .

What has the influencing of the school syllabi regarding evolution got to do with true science?

Isn’t this rather the statement of someone in education or someone that believes in science as a religion?

Why does a top level magazine like Scientific American put forward statements like “despite the passage of time and the accumulation of supporting data, teaching evolutionary theory in the classroom is still a hot-button issue in some U.S. schools”, or even worse “"It's the height of irony that evolution has cobbled together a human brain that can remain stubbornly unconvinced about its own true origin," notes Mirsky. To stand up for science, former Scientific American editor-in-chief John Rennie compiled 15 rebuttals for such "creationist nonsense."

These are statements of people with a non-scientific agenda, that of influencing others to a cause which despite their statements is still a theory, and not a fact!

Accepting everything evolved is no more a fact than that fact proposed by scientists just a few years ago. Then they said that Neanderthals were considered predecessors to us humans.

This “fact” that has been disproven now!

How do you explain that this diagram taught in so many schools (but without the cross as in the picture alongside) was considered “true science” for so long, and it has got to have a cross put through it to make it valid?

What do you say to that Mr Mirsky and Mr. Rennie?

Who will apologies to millions of young people who were taught falsehoods by poor quality scientists who strayed from science into scientific religiosity, a field in which they have no place to be, since it is the domain of faith, not fact!

If we are going to have faith, shouldn’t it be in a religion that conforms more closely to “true” science than any other?

I propose that the Christian bible propounds just such a religion!

[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=science-letdowns-decade

[2] http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=science-letdowns-decade

[3] http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=science-letdowns-decade&photo_id=E19A034F-A7B0-C894-7E0D6D3672420321

Sat, January 2, 2010 | link Comments

Friday, January 1, 2010

Entering 2010 Successfully!

Have you considered how you entered into this year?

I’m not talking about the party last night on Old Year’s eve, or your waking into 2010 this morning! What is your attitude to yourself and what you will do this year?

In what way will you move into the adventure of life for another year? Plans are good and necessary. They give us away to tackle the life activities, but it’s our attitude that is most important!

Maybe you are looking at a year with more need than ability to meet it? How do you see your way through this successfully? Maybe you have all you need, but relationships are blowing up and disintegrating. How do we deal with this?

Looking back it’s easy to see what we consider as making a difference in the last year. How many of these will make a difference in the next year?

During this last year I blogged a series on happiness and contentment and various ways we fail to obtain this happiness and contentment. If we are to be successful in the year we need to consider which of these we will be working on to achieve happiness and contentment. Here is some links to the bogs that could help you out:

· Happiness, Contentment and SLOTH

· Happiness, Contentment and ENVY

· Contentment, happiness and SLANDER

· Happiness and Contentment. . .and the media

· Happiness and Contentment. . .pranking, false witness, and gossip

· Happiness and Contentment. . .and evil scheming

· Contentment and happiness. . .and hurting others?

· Contentment and happiness. . . and LYING

· Happiness, contentment and PRIDE

Outstanding in this list is my treatment of lust and gluttony which I will be addressing in 2010.

But there is a misbelief that the switch from Dec 31 of one year to 1 Jan the next makes a difference. It doesn’t do anything! How can it? It is a movement into a new day. That's all.

The time New Year happens is even variable! My sister-in-law in New Zealand gets to New Year about 18 hours ahead of when we do in North America. So when does the new year really start?

The reality is that it’s another day, but with more community emphasis on making decisions that can help us improve ourselves, others and our environment this year!

Key to ACHEIVING this lives inside us. The combination of our will, emotions and decision making ability, combined with the leading of Holy Spirit (and not the evil in this world) will enable us to press into a future of growth and solid achievement. BUT ONLY if we do what God wants us to do.

Fulfillment in life doesn’t come unless we are successful in reacting to God's call on our lives and checking this against the biblical guidelines.

So this year don’t just make a few superficial changes like committing to changing food intake, or doing more exercise, or other good intentioned but limited changes!

How about joining me in committing to read God’s word, listen to him more clearly and actively helping others around us in life. In this way we can together try to change the world around us to be a better place! This means changing ourselves, our environment, and our community for the better. Change can be stressful but when the prime motivator is love for others, for ourselves, and mostly love towards God himself, we can be very successful!

So let's go and have a happy, fulfilling New Year with a God given purpose!

(PS: I am also praying that you all have enough resources to meet your needs this year and that the resources of God will be opened up to you to use!)

Fri, January 1, 2010 | link Comments

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Forgiveness, recurring guilt and being forgiven. . .

Finding out if we have failed to forgive ourselves for something.

Do you have recurring guilt even though you have asked and received forgiveness? Or do you have recurring times when you wish you had done things differently.

My father was a wise man, and he once said to me that to worry about something once is good, because it reminds me to do something. To worry about something twice is ok, because I may have missed something when I thought about it previously, when I come to worrying the third time, I am simply wasting my time.

Forgiveness is similar. The first time is good, the second may cover things you left out when you come to forgive the exact same thing a third time, its already forgiven! Believe it!

Forgiving ourselves is different to forgiving others. When it comes to forgiving others we never stop!

So what about those real difficult things to forgive, the ones where people have done despicable (real nasty) things to us?

We need to forgive them to release to ourselves spiritual and psychological healing. Until we do this, we are keeping on swallowing the poison of resentment and it will continue to damage us in many varied ways.

Do you know that the bible says you should not go to sleep with resentment in your heart? In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians chapter four he says “In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

He doesn’t want us to allow the negative force of life, that evil spirit to be able to get the ability to cause us to have to do things he wants us to do to “sin”. By not forgiving, we allow ourselves to be damaged.

So what should we do?

We should forgive! The emotions may not be aligned in this but then, a decision is a choice, not an emotion. Forgiving is a choice, no matter how we feel. If we do it and decide to do it, our emotions will sooner or later align and we will be healed.

What if the person doesn’t accept our gift of forgiveness? That is their choice! We can’t demand they do it. If this happens, we must just walk away knowing we have completed our part. The offer stands for when they change their mind, but we have done what we needed to do, the rest is up to them.

So, if we are to be spiritually strong, we must forgive. By giving forgiveness we gain it!

What a gift!

Thu, December 31, 2009 | link Comments

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Dream well, a release from the fear of nightmares!

Today I am breaking into my theme on forgiveness to try and help a young lady who I love and respect who desperately wants to overcome nightmares as they are impacting her sleep. Lack of sleep then messes up her ability to have a good day, and that just isn’t very nice!

First a story. . .

Out in the woods on a sunny summer’s day, Mrs. Cuddles, a gentle hearted rabbit mother was letting her children enjoy the sun, fresh grass and blue skies with the rest of the bunnies of their colony.

Hundreds of rabbits scampered, played, and chewed upon the soft green grass. Mrs. Cuddles called out to her bunnies, “Come children, come Hoptail, Brushfoot, Cottontail and BlackEar. Come Bracken, Softpaw, Sniffles and Snuddles.”

Like most children who are enjoying themselves, they whined and complained, slowly bouncing their way back to her. Now Cuddles was particularly fond of Snuddles a smaller bunny with soft grey hair and a blaze of white between her little eyes. Today Snuddles was particular slow in reacting as she was enjoying her play. She ignored her mom!

Suddenly out of the blue, a brown and grey lightning bolt descended. First there was a swift moving shadow and a sound of vibrating feathers. Then all Mrs. Cuddles could see were talons outstretched as the razor sharp claws of Mr. Falcon headed straight for Snuddles. Horrified, all Mrs. Cuddles could do was watch as those talons stuck deep into the skull and body of her favorite child Snuddles killing her instantly. Then horrible Mr. Falcon simply dropped the body of Snuddles to the ground, alighting on it tore it open devouring Snuddles flesh right there in front of Mrs. Cuddles!

Mrs. Cuddles shouted for the kids to get inside and had no trouble getting her kids into their burrow this time. Amazingly the hillside cleared of rabbits in a millisecond. All that was left on the green grass of the hillside was Mr. Falcon, the remains of Snuddles, and the blue sky.

Soon, having fed, Mr. Falcon took off into the air taking the remains of Snuddles to his nest on the cliff miles away where his hungry young falcons waited for their breakfast!

After a few minutes, this time after posting a watch and carefully watching the sky, the rabbits carefully made their way back onto the grass to feed. As we can imagine, play was not a free as it had been earlier in the day!

Unfortunately Mrs. Cuddles couldn’t go out. She didn’t let her children go out either! In fear they hid together in their dark hole. Every time one of the children wanted to go outside, Mrs. Cuddles would remind them of what had happened to Snuddles and the fear would keep them inside.

Soon they were very hungry and thirsty! Still Mrs. Cuddles wouldn’t let them out. The other rabbits tried to help them but Mrs. Cuddles would have none of it. By the time the next night came about, the Cuddles family was starving and very, very thirsty. So Mrs. Cuddles decided to sneak them out in the dark to get some food and water. This became the pattern of their lives. Living in fear and darkness! None of the other rabbits had this problem. They accepted the risk, took precautions and enjoyed the sunshine and the grass.

Mrs. Cuddles thought she had done the right thing until one night Mr Owl saw a bunny in the moonlight. Then Mrs Cuddles lost Hoptail as well!

Totally fearful she stayed in her burrow, unable to sleep, eat or drink. Word got out to the other rabbits about her plight!

Finally the Old Mr. Greycoat, the wisest rabbit on the hill came into her home. He advised her to give up her fear and act like the other rabbits. “I cannot” she said.

“You can, but fear has taken control” he answered, “but look at your poor children. Your love for them must be enough to overcome your fear or it will kill your family. Simply follow a few common sense steps. Prepare carefully for going out. Make sure you explain what the signal is to run for cover to each child. Secondly watch Mr. KeenEye who continually scans the sky for enemies. He’s a friend who warns us early of this danger. Thirdly, understand that it’s fine to be on the grass and never let fear have control since the grass is where you are entitled to be. Lastly be quick to react to danger in a planned way. In this way, your family will be able to join the rest of us!”

I wonder what Mrs. Cuddles did!

We all have had nightmares at some time or the other! Some statistics suggest that about ¾ of the population have predominantly negative dreams. I sure hope and pray that statistic is not accurate! But we cannot let negative dreams disable us!

To understand how we have to deal with nightmares, we need to understand to some degree what our subconscious is, that not all nightmares we have are evil, that what we do before we go to bed impacts nightmares, that how we react to them afterwards impacts the future nightmares and ourselves, and that we need to have the spiritual cover of Holy Spirit’s protection while we sleep.

Let’s start with the subconscious! This is the part of thinking that happens inside our minds that we don't know about directly. We cannot control it directly either(not normally). It is a really helpful part of us since it keeps us breathing, balancing, our heart pumping, and enables us to drive without having to think about what we are doing all the time. It also helps us work out problems in a way that is outside our controllable thinking processes. But this “subconscious” also plays a large part in our dream world!

When we have dreams or nightmares our subconscious is reacting with other parts of our mind to work out ways of improving our situation. When it’s successful, that’s great! When it goes into a lousy unpleasant loop, we can end up with a nightmare.

Okay, so dreams and nightmares can be either good or bad. Sometimes they have meaning, other times it’s just the mind doing a bit of house cleaning. The problem is when our nightmare reduce us to fear and the anguish limits us sleeping.

Like Mrs. Cuddles in the story we can get paranoiac and start to react in incorrect ways that only increases the problem! If Mrs. Cuddles was sensible, she would have faced her fear head on. Followed the common sense approach to living and living life knowing the risks but in a healthy (although more careful) manner is a sensible path to take.

This is what we need to do to overcome the fear of nightmares! You see, the fear is more dangerous than the nightmare itself! It’s the fear that gives nightmares their power. If we understand that perfect love throws out fear we are half way to a solution.

So are nightmares always bad?
“No!”

Biblically there is a lot of information to show that God uses dreams and even nightmares to alert us to spiritually impacting situations. Not all dreams and nightmares are from God, but some are. Let’s look at a few examples

· Genesis 15:12-13 (NIRV) “As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep. A thick and terrible darkness covered him.”

· Job 33:14-16 (NIRV)” He speaks in one way and then another. We might not even realize it. He might speak in a dream or in a vision at night. That's when people are sound asleep in their beds. He might speak in their ears. His warnings might terrify them.

· Matthew 2:13 (NIRV) “When the Wise Men had left, Joseph had a dream. In the dream an angel of the Lord appeared to him. ‘Get up!’ the angel said. ‘Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you to come back. Herod is going to search for the child. He wants to kill him.”

God also puts into our dream the seeds of understanding how to identify situations that are potentially impacting us. This is one use of a dream of nightmare.

Sometimes dreams reveal hidden memories to us (but they get distorted a lot). They can often be connected to nasty things that have happened to us or around us. So how do we deal with these?

There is only one way to deal with dreams once they have occurred. It’s how we process them once we are awake, the amount of fear we allow them to generate within us, and the path we take in reworking them to have less power on us the next time.

Mrs. Cuddles would have done well to have resisted her fear. She would have done better if she didn’t infect those around her with her fear, and she would have done the best if she had faced it and acted against it with courage. Horrible things that happen get imprinted onto the clean slates of our mind. How we reprocess them is our choice!

Next we need to know dreams often are a result of reprocessing current activities. The bible gives out a lot of advice in this regard;

· Psalm 4:4 (NIRV) “When you are angry, do not sin. When you are in bed, look deep down inside you and be silent.”

· Ephesians 4:26 (NIRV) “Scripture says, "When you are angry, do not sin."—(Psalm 4:4) Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. “

· 1 Peter 5:7 (NIRV) “Turn all your worries over to him. He cares about you.”

· Philippians 4:8 (NIRV) “Finally, my brothers and sisters, always think about what is true. Think about what is noble, right and pure. Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect. If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things.”

If we go to bed angry, we are much more likely to have nightmares. Let’s hand our worries to God before we sleep. Ask Him to protect our innocent life while we sleep. Ask Him to forgive us for not forgiving ourselves for nasty, ignorant and selfish things we did during this day. Let’s forgive others for what they did to us. Let’s ask Holy Spirit to come in and comfort and reside with us. Then as we open up the warm happy memory box that we should keep in our minds, and as we slowly appreciate each of these, praising God for each of them as we let the sleep catch up with us, we will have a better chance of overcoming evil. Each time a negative image or thought occurs let’s gently push it across to God to deal with and dip into the happy memories again. This can help us deal with the fear in a good solid way that slowly erodes the power the nightmare has on us!

Also, we need to know that rich food and not enough physical activity during the day causes nightmares. Be careful of sleeping on a stomach full of rich food or avoiding a physical workout each day. The bible says in Ecclesiastes 5:12 (NIRV) “The sleep of a worker is sweet. It doesn't matter whether he eats a little or a lot. But the wealth of a rich man keeps him awake at night.”

The more rich foods we have to eat, the more we own and worry about, and the less physical effort we do, the less likely we will sleep well! Moderation, trusting God and exercise will help us sleep better!

We need to understand the ”Evil One’s” use of dreams against us is two fold:

1. To get us to have an incorrect self image. (The Evil One uses incorrect sexual dreams, dreams of horrific acts we appear to do, to do this!)

2. To inject fear and other self limiting emotions into you to disable you.

So let’s be careful of accepting Satan’s lies that come through dreams, and know that temptations introduced by way of dreams are not sin or representative of ourselves unless we allow them to take hold of us. Resist the devil(and incorrect emotions that dreams create) and the Evil One will run from Holy Spirit within you!

Nightmares are normally dreams we remember fairly well( thankfully, not always)! This remembrance is a tool for their destruction! What we know, we can do something about. We can look for ways to “end the story” in our own and God’s favour. By reprocessing these with emotions and thoughts that will overcome the dream, we can reposition ourselves for more success next time. Think of alternative endings, correct emotional responses, and what God's way is of handling the sitiuation, to get guidance on how to deal with the mightmare!

Lastly, we need to get on with our lives. Mrs. Cuddles had to to stay alive, but often we don’t have that powerful drive to stay alive pushing us forward. Know that a dream is a temporary problem! Handing it to God and going back to sleep is far healthier than lying awake in a cold sweat, afraid to let go of our lives and put them in God’s hands. Remember God is real and controlling our lives is an illusion.

None of us are really in charge of our destiny no matter how much we think we are! A loving God is!He is offering to help but we have to totally trust him, let him take the selfish ignorant and nasty things we have done and take the beating for our mistakes (that’s what he has done), and say sorry for the things we have done that are selfish, ignorant and nasty. Then with a clear conscious and caressing our happy memories we can sleep better than a baby!

Hey, have a great day and a blessed night’s sleep!

Wed, December 30, 2009 | link Comments

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Forgiveness- watching ourselves!

Jesus tells us to forgive, but he points out the power is his.

First he says;

"So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."[1]

The seven times is a special number in those days and is representative of many, many times. (note: the word “repent” means being “sorry”). Jesus wants us to make sure to tell people that approach us and say they are sorry, that it’s ok, they are forgiven. Even if they repeatedly come back over and over again! He wants us to be like him. He says he will never stop forgiving us, and wants us to do the same for ourselves and others. Jesus gives us this ability by his Holy Spirit, who lives inside us and gives us that capability.

Can Jesus forgive others?

When he was walking around in the Middle East, some people brought him a paralysed man. He forgave the man his sins(selfish, ignorant, and nasty things they had done and then when people didn’t believe he had the power (because we can’t physically see that sins are being forgiven) he said this

“Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all.”[2]

He understood that we needed to see something because he was human like us. He points out forgiving sins is harder than healing a paralysed person by speaking to them. I don’t think I could do that so forgiving sins must be very difficult indeed! But, Jesus has the power! Holy Spirit has the power through Jesus. Through Jesus and his Holy Spirit, we have the power to forgive.

Do you feel guilty for things you have done? If they are wrong from a biblical perspective, you need to forgive yourself for what you did wrong and them ask those who got hurt because of you for their forgiveness. If they give it, that’s good! If they don’t, it’s good!

Yes, I didn’t make a mistake in that statement. It doesn’t matter what they say. You are asking forgiveness because it’s the right thing for you to do, not because of the response.

You should try and be friends, but if the person rejects your friendship, it’s not your responsibility to do more. I have been asked what to do if the person has died and isn’t there to forgive. One suggestion I have is that you write out your apology and once it's complete, take it to a beautiful spot somewhere, read it out, and then light a match and burn it. This is a way of confirming to yourself that you have asked for this forgiveness.

So the first thing to do is ask forgiveness for things you know you have done wrong. This will get you tuned up for the next step. That I will be discussing in a future blog.

Have a great day and give yourself a break! Forgive yourself and others!

[1] Luke 17 verse 3

[2] Mark chapter 2 starting at verse 8

Tue, December 29, 2009 | link Comments

Monday, December 28, 2009

The toughest and most courageous decision of all – Forgiveness!

Forgiveness is probably the second most difficult thing you can do.

(Accepting Jesus is God, and handing control of your life over to Holy Spirit is the most difficult initial decision but once its done we need to move on).

Once Holy Spirit is in your life, you understand that God has forgiven you of everything you ever did that was stupid, ignorant, and nasty. God holds no record of past wrongs but we do. Often our first part of the problem is that we don’t forgive ourselves, and the second is there are others we have not forgiven.

Why forgive? Surely there is no need?

Many Christians will not like what I am about to say so I will quote parts of the sacred writings to make sure they don’t think this is my idea. Some important early Christians who walked around with Jesus as he spoke to the people quoted him as saying that we should pray to God and ask him to;

“Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us”[1]

Jesus apparently explained this as;

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”[2] (added bold emphasis is mine).

Okay! So people have been stupid, ignorant and nasty and have hurt us. Sometimes they have hurt us real badly. Sometimes its physical hurt, but more often it is by taking advantage of us when we were innocent and unsuspecting. Sometimes it was deliberate. They wanted to cause us pain. Nasty is probably an understatement for some of the horrible things people have done.

Perhaps you were physically abused as a young child, perhaps you were bullied as a young teenager, perhaps you were ostracised and nobody spoke to you or allowed you to be their friend, perhaps you were told you had no worth, that you were stupid, or ugly, or crazy, or one of many other hurtful things? These are just a few of the horrible things people do to each other. The pain that gets inflicted is immense, and without a way of dealing with it, it eats into our lives. Sometimes we even believe the lies people tell us in this way.

We often try and deal with this in different ways. Sometimes we try and ignore the pain or situation and hope it will go away, sometimes we seek revenge, sometimes we substitute something else instead, something we think we can control, and that ends up hurting us. Alcohol, drugs, cutting, anorexia, etc. are some examples of this. In some desperately devastating situations we could even think of suicide or death is the answer to the pain and loneliness.

There is an answer and its not death! It takes courage and willingness to do the right thing even if it appears to be more painful, but in the end there is the ability to move on and get healing. In many cases, this is all tied up in understanding the spiritual approach to forgiveness.

“Stop! What was wrong can never be made right!” is an argument I have heard and perhaps could be the words in your heart. “you could never understand!”, “what happened to me is so devastating I will never get over it!” are other statements.

Perhaps these statements are right, but if they are, then we are without hope. I don’t believe they are!

Let me let you in on a secret. We cannot forgive sins ourselves, only God can! We have to have God within us, actively guiding us, before we can really forgive ourselves and others, otherwise we will just be saying words. Then we can forgive! True forgiveness is not a feeling or words, it is a spiritual decision to apply forgiveness and allow God’s Holy Spirit to do the work that we can’t do. Sometimes it’s just too difficult and big for us to do alone. Does that mean we can’t say we are sorry and mean it? Of course not! We can say sorry and mean it, but when it gets to those big forgiveness things, it can become almost impossible to do. Those need supernatural strength, and then it’s a God specialised task.

I will continue with this subject tomorrw, but right now let us be courageous and forgive those who have hurt us and sinned against us(i.e done stupid, ignorant and nasty things that have hurt us). It releases us and sets us free!

[1] NIV Bible, Luke chapter 11 starting at verse 4

[2] NIV Bible, Matthew chapter 6 starting at verse 14

Mon, December 28, 2009 | link Comments

Sunday, December 27, 2009

A summary - Christmas dates, thermodynamics and a new beginning!

It is said that Jesus was born on December 25th , 2009 years ago

Do you know why this is the case?
What are the theories?
What does the bible say?

Today we will be discussing:

Christmas
The Laws of Thermodynamics
New Beginnings

CHRISTMAS
Christmas is the day we choose to celebrate the birth of a baby that happened over 2000 years ago! To fully understand this we need to understand the Jewish calendar is different from ours:

MONTH	Roman Month	Number of days	Civil Year month	Sacred Year Month
TISHRI	Sept to Oct	30	1^st	7^th
HESHVAN	Oct to Nov	29 or 30	2^nd	8^th
KISLEV	Nov to Dec	29 or 30	3^rd	9^th
TEBETH	Dec to Jan	29	4^th	10^th
SHEBAT	Jan to Feb	30	5^th	11^th
ADAR	Feb to Mar	29 or 30	6^th	12^th
NISAN	Mar to Apr	30	7^th	1^st
IYAR	Apr to May	29	8^th	2^nd
SIVAN	May to Jun	30	9^th	3^rd
TAMMAZ	June to July	29	10^th	4^th
AB	July to Aug	30	11^th	5^th
ELUL	Aug to Sept	29	12^th	6^th

They had two calendars and every few year s an additional month VEADAR was added between ADAR and NISAN.

The calendars were:

Civil : Official calendar of Kings, births and civil activities
Sacred : Tracking festivals

One of these festivels was near Christmas. This was called Hanukkah.

The history of Hanukkah is that in 168 BC the temple is captured by the Greeks and dedicated to Zeus! Jewish anger erupted into fully fledged violence and war. There is an incident in a little town of Modiem, where a Jewish priest Mattathias, killed a Jewish defector who was about to perform a repulsive sacrifice ordered by a Seleucide official. Mattathais killed the Jew and the official and started a revolt. Judas Macabee led the revolt in 166 BC and the became independent and rededication the temple in 165 BC. They didn’t have enough oil but lit a Menorah anyhow. The menorah should have 1 days oil but it lasted 8 days. Today Hanukkah is still celebrated by Jews on 25^th day of Kislev for 8 days.

|Now lets DATE Christmas

Month of the year. . . The pregnant girls timing.

Elizabeth pregnancy.
See this described in Luke chapter one . Her husband was Zecheriah (a high priest). They couldn’t have children and were elderly but, God changes that! They have sex around the time of Feast of Tabernacles(Booths) which is a week-long autumn harvest festival that lasts for seven days and ends on 21st day of Tishri (Sept to Oct).

Mary’s pregnancy. See Luke 1 and 2. Husband was Joseph but her pregnancy didn’t come from him but from Holy Spirit! The bible says she got pregnant 6 months after Elizabeth.

Timeline:

JESUS BIRTH. Born around Nov/Dec/Jan, the date is unknown!

The YEAR: DATING BY ROMAN NAMES
·         Luke talks of Augustus and Quirinius.  See Luke 2: 1-3
·         Matthew talks of King Herod. See Matthew 2:3-4

Caesar Augustus :
·         23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14,
·         He was generally called
         ·                    Octaviaus between 63 and 44 BC, and
         ·                    Augustus between 27BC and his death.

King Herod: (Herod the great)
·         Born 74BC died 4BC
·         Don’t get this guy mixed up with other Herod’s like the one that killed John the Baptist

Quirinius :

· Born 51 BC died AD 21.

JESUS BIRTH YEAR APPROXIMATION
•      Herod’s death
    •      Know to be 4 BC, He died around a lunar eclipse which can be dated.
•      Herod killed children 2 years and under
    •      See Matthew 2:16 Jesus would have been 2 or under.
    •      See Matthew 2:19 Talks of Jesus death

So Jesus is born about 6BC around Nov/Dec/Jan in the Jewish month of Tebeth

2. Laws of Thermodynamics

These are Scientific and Engineering laws that seem to be absolutely true!

To understand these we need to know what Entropy is. This is the total number of ways things in a system can be arranged. I Know this does not make much sense. Take it as a measure of the amount of randomness and disorder that can occur for a given thing

LAW 1: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed (conservation of Energy)
•      This means that energy can change from one form to another but can’t be destroyed

LAW 2: Entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will increase over time
•      In our terms this means that things tend to go towards the greatest state of disorder.

LAW 3:As the temperature of something gets to absolute zero, entropy gets to a constant minimum.
•      At -273C things go to a point of minimal disorder. (i.e. they freeze up real well!)

New Beginnings

New beginnings are the start of something!

What is the importance of these? i.e.

Christmas – birth of Jesus
Laws of Thermodynamics
New Beginnings

Together they explain that God must exist and why!

New beginnings start at the start of time. Scientists tell us time started with the start of the universe. Scientists do sometimes talk creation of the Universe as a Big Bang . They say everything we know comes from a pin prick in space and this expanded somehow into everything we know today!

What does the Bible say?

•      GENESIS 1: 1(NIV)
–     God created the heavens and Earth.
–     No explanation needed as this is a pretty clear statement.

•      JOHN 1: 1-2 (NIV)
–     In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
–     Explanation needed here.
     •      John was using the term “Word” to refer to God in the form of Jesus.
     •      This means it says. “In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was with God.” It then says Jesus made everything.

Now for the FUN bit!

Combine the bible with the first law of thermodynamics that says energy cannot be created or destroyed, and you will realize that all the energy in our universe must have been there before the beginning!

This means:
•      Jesus created everything that has been created, so this Universe is only part of what Jesus can do!
•      Jesus must have been there before the beginning!
So the 1^st Law of Thermodynamics implies that God must exist because all the energy of the universe was there before time started!

2^nd Law of Thermodynamic Implication needs to now be discussed.

Is our universe an ordered place?
If the second law is to be believed, the universe goes from order to disorder all the time. So how does dust and gas become cells of living matter?
That requires a decrease and not an increase in disorder!
Opposite to what the 2nd law says!

GOING FROM DISORDER TO ORDER is a God given attribute! Most of it has to do with living stuff. Living stuff goes the opposite way to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics To get us to where we are today required huge amounts of going against disorder. The only way this could happen is if there was something guiding what was happening.

The fact is that Entropy is reversed to establish an Earth full of humans, who themselves fight entropy in the image of God!

We didn’t organize everything with all its complexity. Someone did! The bible says this was Jesus! Again, if I have to choose to trust something, I want to trust the book that gets both of the Laws of Thermodynamics explained properly. God’s bible seems to do that!

So we have linked New Beginnings and Entropy, but what about Christmas?

Christmas is a celebration of an event (although the exact time of this event is not known).

This event was another New Beginning. It was a new Beginning of God becoming a Man! Fully a man! (I should say human since I am not leaving any woman out of this). The guy who knows it all gives it up to become part of what he built!

Why? . . .Entropy! Spiritual Entropy!

If left to ourselves, we degrade ourselves and go to our lowest form of spiritual state. We become selfish, nasty, proud, despotic, ignoring others and grabbing stuff for ourselves. Even loving others becomes way of fulfilling only ourselves! God needed to fight this spiritual entropy and change the course of our future. He had to come and show us a better way!

He(Jesus) came between us as a peacemaker. He allowed us to treat him miserably,
•      torture him, strip him naked and put him on public display in such a way that people could gawk at him.
•      They abused him in horrible ways until he died!
•      Amazing considering this is the guy who wrote the laws of Thermodynamics before anyone was around to discover them.
•      This is the guy who established the universe!

What was he doing?
•      He was setting up a situation to help us out when we get judged after we die.
We will all get judged!
•      Even those of us who think Christianity is a pile of manure!
•      When we stand in front of the all knowing being that science says must exist, we will be incapable of not forgiving any other human who has also accepted Jesus’ forgiveness.
•      This is because of what Jesus allowed us to do to him.
•      We did far worse than anything and everything bad that has ever happened or will happen in this small universe that Jesus created!
•      We will be horrified at what mankind did! We will want to love Jesus so much for what he did for us!

Christmas time

So that now brings me to Christmas! That’s the time when this ability to be forgiven by Jesus began. It was a new spiritual beginning!So for me Christmas, Entropy and New Beginnings are linked and it makes me glad to celebrate this time with good music, good food, helping others as much as I can and by working against Entropy as much as I can.

What are your thoughts on this time of the year? How do you see it? What will you do to connect to the God of Christmas?

Sun, December 27, 2009 | link Comments

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